Curse No More: Colorado State Wins National Championship

Colorado State capped an undefeated season, dominating UC Santa
Barbara 14-4 at the El Pomar Sports Park to become the first No. 1
seed to win the US Lacrosse Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse
Associates National Championship since Cal Poly in 2007. It was the
third national championship for CSU’s seniors, and avenged a
loss to UC Davis in last year’s title game.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we
didn’t want to feel like we did last year,” said senior
Hayley Bernstein, who had five goals in the championship game and
was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Midfielder.
“All week we were saying we’re going to make history,
and it couldn’t have turned out any better.”

The Rams made history with excellent play and some serious
toughness.

“I had my appendix out a week and a half ago,” said
Bernstein. “We’re such a close team when I woke up from
my surgery, half my team was in the waiting room.”

She was hardly alone in showing grit. Senior midfielder Sarah
Moyer got her left wrist stepped on in the semifinals and was
gingerly holding it for much of the last two days. She scored two
goals in the championship game. Senior Karly Slyne was wearing a
knee brace from an injury she suffered on the same field last year,
and ignited a key three-goal run in the first half with a goal and
two assists. And senior attacker Maddie Garcia had her shoulder
bandaged and was hobbling around on a bad ankle the entire
tournament. She netted three goals in the championship game, and
was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Attack
player.

Hayley Bernstein had five goals to help Colorado State to
its third national championship in the last four
years.

“We played through broken bones, pulled muscles, torn
shoulders,” said Bernstein. “I think that says a lot
about our team. We’re willing to do whatever it
takes.”

“Knowing what it felt like to lose in the championship
game, we were never going to let that happen again,” said
Moyer.

The Rams won thanks to a vintage shutdown performance on
defense. Colorado State gave up just a combined 16 goals in its
previous three national championships (2008, 2010 and 2011), and
second-year CSU coach Lindsey Hudek was a key defender for two of
those title teams. She said last year she put too much emphasis on
offense.

“I knew I needed to change my mentality,” said
Hudek. “I was so driven with the attack last year that I kind
of forgot about the defense. This year was very balanced. We worked
on attack and we worked on defense. Every part of the field had to
be strong, and I think that was the difference this
year.”

The victory capped a perfect 22-0 season, but one that was full
of pressure and expectations. CSU’s previous championships
had not come when they were in the role of favorite.

“One of the main things we’ve been saying all season
is that we’ve won the tournament in all black because we were
always the underdog and now we’ve won it in all white and
that’s what we wanted all along," said Bernstein. "The curse
of the one seed, I think we broke it.”

Recaps of the consolation games follow:

BYU 13, Cal Poly 9: Brooke Smith scored six
goals and Megan McCleary made 10 saves as the Cougars earned a
third place finish. BYU scored four goals in the final five minutes
of the first half, three of them by Smith, to take an 8-6 halftime
lead. Cal Poly’s Kendra Keenan scored just 55 seconds into
the second half to cut the lead to one, but the Mustangs then went
more than 20 minutes before scoring again. Kristin Lund added two
goals and two assists for BYU and Briana Arnold had two goals. Cal
Poly was led by Emily DeSimone and Avi Feldman with two goals each
while Kelly Harris made nine saves.

Georgia 8, Texas 3: Georgia held Texas
scoreless for the final 34 minutes of the game to win a low-scoring
affair. Georgia goalie Emily Seidel made 10 saves in the victory
while the Bulldogs offense was paced by Murphy Ferguson with two
goals and two assists. Kimberly Khourie, Tully Moorhead and Kaitlin
Bahr scored for Texas.

Santa Clara 16, Pittsburgh 12: Santa Clara held
Pitt to just one goal in the final 22 minutes, rallying from an
11-6 second half deficit to earn the win. Maggie Burke led the
Broncos with six goals and two assists and Brooke Bett’s
second goal of the game broke a 12-12 tie with 5:38 to play.
Margaret Stankaitis and Christa Laustsen each had four goals for
Pitt.

Southern Cal Club 19, Minnesota 12: Trailing
8-7 at the half, USC turned the tide by storming out with seven
goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Five different
Trojans scored at least three goals – Elena Skouras (4),
Megan Rilkoff (3), Hayden Furey (3), Erin McGillivray (3) and
Madison Boutilier (3). USC goalie Madison Aguirre made 14 saves.
Minnesota was led by Hannah Segar with three goals and two assists
and Ashlee Miller with three goals.

Florida Club 15, Maryland Club 9: Florida held
Maryland to just one first-half goal and led by as many as 10 goals
in cruising to the win. McKinley Carden paced the Gator offense
with four goals and two assists while Nicole White and Jenna
Hildebrand each had three goals. Megan Lusby has four goals for the
Terps and Jillian Marchese has three assists.

Virginia Club 17, Michigan Club 15: Virginia
had 11 different goal scorers and outlasted Michigan in a game of
runs. The Cavaliers scored five goals in the final five minutes of
the first half to take a 13-6 halftime lead, but Michigan answered
by scoring the first five goals of the second half to cut it to
13-11. The Cavaliers regained momentum and led 17-12 before
Michigan scored the last three goals of the game. Trent Holden led
Virginia with three goals while Michigan was paced by Katie Mezwa
with six goals and Julianne Patterson with four. Michigan’s
Sydney Franko made 13 saves.

Northeastern 14, Oregon Club 13: Chelsea Andre
broke a 13-13 tie by scoring her second goal of the game with 4:55
to play to lead the Huskies to the win. Northeastern trailed 7-5 at
the half, but Anne Lally scored all four of her goals in the second
half as the Huskies rallied. Northeastern goalies Demetra Venancio
and Katie Markey combined to make 13 saves. Hanna Peper led Oregon
with three goals and two assists and Siobhan Mead also had three
goals.